


risking delight

by rilla



Category: One Direction (Band), Zayn Malik (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 03:40:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8271278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rilla/pseuds/rilla
Summary: '“I woke up and you weren’t there,” Harry complains, half a yawn, and Zayn says, “I’m sorry.”'





	

**Author's Note:**

> Posting my tumblr fic on here one at a time. The prompt was a terminal illness au so please be aware of that! Title from Jack Gilbert.

The sun is so bright today. The sun is bright and he can hear birds singing from where the window is cracked open, pouring light and heat into the room, a bright pale slant on the wooden floor. Beside him Harry is still asleep, his face pressed into his pillow and his mouth, precious and lovely in its familiarity, is slightly open, his breathing strong and even. Zayn reaches out to touch him, to press his fingers into Harry’s curly dark hair and to push it back from his face, and in his sleep Harry stretches catlike and smiles, lips brushing against Zayn’s wrist, long lashes fluttering before he settles back into deeper sleep. 

Zayn tests his body out. Stretches one leg and then the other. Moves his hips. There’s a sort of deep bone aching, an exhaustion that hasn’t been cured by sleep for weeks now, but he can already tell that today will be a good day, the sort of day when he can get things done. Read some of his book, take the dog for a walk, take himself to his studio with his paints and markers. Maybe today is the sort of day that he and Harry can invite friends over for dinner. Harry can make the salad and he’ll marinate the chicken. They can invite the boys: Louis will get everyone drunk on too much wine and make terrible jokes and Niall will tune Harry’s old guitar and play songs that Zayn barely knows but that will make him happy anyway. Liam will be bright and cheerful during dinner and then afterwards when he’s leaving he’ll look from Zayn to Harry to Zayn again and ask if there’s anything he can do; and they’ll shake their heads no, and assure him that if the time comes that they need help, when that time comes, they will ask him for it, and, reassured, Liam will head on home into the night.

He gets out of bed. Bathroom first, fumbling through his morning pills that Harry sorted into sections of a pill box for him. Wednesday morning, the pink section. He takes one of the digestive biscuits they keep in a tin in the hallway to help the pills go down and eats it as he goes downstairs, hand on the banister, placing his feet carefully on the steps. Thor leaps out of his basket as he sees Zayn approaching, wags his tail excitedly as Simba prowls out of the dining room. He feeds Thor first and then Simba, crouching to shake food into their bowls. Bending at the waist hurts now. He watches them eat, slightly out of breath, and goes to put the kettle on. The morphine will kick in soon, he reminds himself as pain shoots through his belly, one stab of it and then another. He only just took his pills so he has to be patient. Soon, soon, soon. He has another biscuit, and makes himself a cup of tea, which always helps.

Out of the window the grass is green and lush and the sky is a deep, headstrong blue. Daffodils are blooming towards the end of their garden next to the small lake. His last spring, following his last winter. He wasn’t sorry to see the back of the cold weather but this: this, he’ll miss. The vibrant red of the pots of camellias by the back door. The bare yellow canes that Harry grows raspberries on in the summer. The heaviness of the white blooms on the magnolia tree that gives Zayn’s sister aching hay fever every time she comes to visit, and the green hopefulness of the apple trees by the back fence, in stark contrast to the half-faded graffiti that Zayn sprayed on there when they first moved in. The bird bath is next to the window, an empty stone cradle, and Zayn fills a measuring jug with water and takes it outside. Fills the bird bath and goes back inside so he can stand, hands around his slowly cooling tea mug, and watch the birds tentatively arrive. Outside the air is cool and fresh and promising and the ground is cold and rough beneath his bare feet. A new dawn, a new day. The preciousness of it. The days, the hours, the minutes.

He puts on a bit of Janet Jackson and sticks some bread in the toaster before sitting down at the breakfast bar. Thor barks at his feet and Zayn stretches down a hand to pet his silky head. For a moment he considers opening up the internet on his phone but he doesn’t want to read the news, doesn’t want to know anything, really. For the last month or so his world has been narrowing down, gently carving away sort-of-acquaintances, old colleagues, maybe-friends who didn’t have all that much to say when it all started happening. The spare rooms in their house are ready and waiting for when his family wants to come and stay, which will be some time soon, probably, but for now his life is Harry, and their small circle of friends, and their dog and their cat, and the nice lady in the corner shop who always asks him how he is when he goes in for cigarettes and half-pints of milk, and makes gentle fun of the slogans on his t-shirts. She often gives him free sweets, which he supposes is one perk of this whole situation.

There’s Sammy too, who is around more than Zayn had ever thought he would be again. Sammy is a dog they rescued seven years ago, who died eighteen months ago, and he’s back sometimes, more and more lately. He sits on the floor next to the bed when Zayn’s having a bad day, his eyes steady and firm and loving, and sometimes when Zayn lets his hand stretch halfway down to the floor he thinks he can feel Sammy lick it, the way he always did, just to say hello, just to say I’m here. Sammy’s a good boy; he always was. He thinks he might tell Harry about Sammy some time, but he’s going to wait. Harry’s good at hiding how he feels these days, good at covering it up with easy smiles, but it’s not easy for him; it’s harder, maybe, than it is for Zayn. When it happened and they were sitting outside the hospital hand in hand, Zayn remembers Harry saying I wish I could spare you from this, babe, and he remembers thinking, No, I wish I could spare you from it. Not saying it aloud, because his voice hadn’t been working particularly well, a lump rising in his throat. He wishes they’d both been spared, but that’s not the way it worked out.

The toast pops up but Zayn doesn’t feel like having to get out a plate and a knife and jam or butter or Nutella or marmalade. Instead he sits. Listens to Janet, watches the birds and the sky. It’s so high out there and so clear. The first he hears of Harry is his familiar shuffling footsteps and he turns, fast and then slow because there’s a moment of dizziness, and Harry smiles across at him, turns down the music. “You can turn that off if you want,” Zayn tells him, and Harry nods and does, because he isn’t good with music first thing in the morning.

“I woke up and you weren’t there,” Harry complains, half a yawn, and Zayn says, “I’m sorry.”

Their eyes meet and Harry’s lips turn down. “It’s okay,” he says, and touches Zayn’s back as he passes by, goes to the toaster. Takes the bread out, spreads one slice with peanut butter and the other with Nutella, cuts them both in half, passes two halves over to Zayn, one Nutella and one peanut butter.

He’s not really hungry, although he doesn’t want to say so. Instead he says “Thank you,” and Harry smiles at him. There’s a moment of still, sweet quiet, and then Zayn says, “It’s a gorgeous day.”

Harry nods. There are crumbs at the edge of his mouth and Zayn wants to lean over and kiss them off. Harry says “We could take Thor to the park. Or just down to the bottom of the garden. We could go out and have a coffee and sit outside…” He raises his eyebrows at Zayn, and weirdly enough it does feel like he’s suggesting treats. Even now, spending a Wednesday not working feels decadent and extravagant and exciting.

“That sounds nice,” Zayn says, and suggests, “I thought we could invite the boys over tonight.”

“Yes!” Harry says, face lighting up, and reaches across to touch Zayn’s face, warm dry palm curving over his cheek. “You look good.”

“I always look good,” Zayn says, and twists so he can kiss the inside of Harry’s wrist.

“You do,” Harry agrees, and strokes his thumb along the line of Zayn’s cheekbone, looking into his eyes, deep and loving.

“Have you seen the birds?” Zayn asks him, and Harry shakes his head, puts his toast down and ambles over to stand behind Zayn at the window. His arms snake around Zayn’s waist, hand creeping underneath his shirt. Zayn feels the press of Harry’s nose and then his mouth against the side of his neck, the silky tangle of Harry’s hair, the solidity and warmth of him behind him. “Look.” He leans back comfortably against Harry. “They’re playing, right? The little one. He’s splashing the big one.” In the bird bath one bird dips its head and then shakes its feathers furiously. “We can’t let Simba outside yet,” Zayn says.

“Definitely not. I don’t want to have to clear up any feathers. You’re really good at getting out of cleaning duties lately,” Harry says, arms tightening around him.

Zayn half laughs, stroking his hand over Harry’s bare arm. “I know. I’m pretty sneaky like that.” He thinks of Harry unloading the dishwasher every time and doing all the washing up and vacuuming and cleaning the bath uncomplainingly after Zayn was horribly sick into it and emptying Simba’s litter box and wandering around with suspenders on and lacy knickers and a feather duster in one hand and a massive smirk on his face. Zayn says, reaching up to touch the side of Harry’s face, “Thank you.”

“What for?”

“You know.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“You didn’t have to stay.”

“I love you,” Harry says, like that’s an answer, and Zayn supposes it is, really. He would have stayed, too. Harry says again after a moment, “I love you,” and turns his face down into the dip between Zayn’s shoulder and neck. Zayn feels him take a breath, feels the flutter of Harry’s eyelashes, and turns around in his arms. Faces him, drinks him in. The fact of him so close and so loving and so sincere. This is what he’s angry about, the only thing. He’d give up a million springtimes for the life he was supposed to have with Harry, for the life they had planned on. The guilt of leaving him is unfathomably huge. He wishes he didn’t have to go.

He puts his arms around Harry’s neck and presses their hips together, and says, “Hey. Hey,” and makes Harry look up at him, his mouth a tight untrembling brave line. “I love you too,” Zayn tells him, and Harry relaxes just a little, leans in to kiss him. The warmth of him is as familiar and comforting as a cup of hot tea, and they hold each other for a moment longer, for the time that they allow themselves. Outside the morning is ready, clean and fresh and bright, holding a life that’s still there for now, waiting to be found.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Any comments are appreciated.


End file.
